The following description relates to database systems.
Database systems are commonly employed in computing systems to store and organize information. A database system may include a database, a program for accessing the database, and any number of mechanisms to access records in the database. In a business-oriented database system, operations carried out by tools that may access the database may include reporting, manual planning (interactive planning), and planning functions (automated planning). The database may be a multidimensional database. In such a database system, the database may include, for example, a buffer that reads a selection of data from a multidimensional database into memory and allows changes of these data during a planning session, i.e. during manual planning and planning functions operations. The buffer may handle both reading the data, managing changes and storing the changes in the database. Changes to the data may be made by user interaction or automated planning functions.
Planning tools are typically loosely integrated with other online analytical processing (“OLAP”) tools, such as reporting. Thus, the buffer of a planning tool, for example, need not be accessible from other software agents. Also, planning tools have a very limited subset of OLAP features. For example, planning data need not be stored in a data warehouse. Planning data may be stored locally to a planning tool. In that case, planning data, including changed data, may be inaccessible to a reporting tool until the data is stored in the database.
OLAP is a well-established technology to analyze data that are stored within a multidimensional database for the purpose of reporting. Planning using multidimensional databases has become more popular. Technically, the execution of business planning tasks on these multidimensional structures entails changing the data in a simulative manner. This can happen via direct user interaction on a planning sheet, where a user enters planning data, or via automatic planning functions where the planning software changes the data (e.g. automated forecast functions). In both cases there is a need that the data changes are not stored or persisted directly in the database but are kept in memory.